Abstract
Soldiers’ bones in urns—evidence of a forgotten battle fought around 730 b.c. Did these men perish on their island home of Paros, at the center of the Aegean Sea, or in some distant land? The loss of so many, at least 120 men, was certainly a catastrophe for the community, but their families and compatriots honored them, putting their cremated remains into large vases, two of which were decorated with scenes of mourning and war. Grief stricken relatives then carried the urns to the cemetery in Paroikia, the island’s chief city, and placed them in two monumental tombs.